


quiet harvest

by actualflower



Series: fireteam: condor [4]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Destiny 2, F/F, Minor Character Death, anyway i'm sad and you should be too, ryf is on Venus and she's Pissed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 03:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12380184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualflower/pseuds/actualflower
Summary: Ryf is on Venus.Alone.She's not going to let that keep her from her girls.





	quiet harvest

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd. enjoy. <3 thank you for reading.

Ryf wakes up on Venus with the feeling of something missing. It’s not quantifiable, not for a long moment - like she’s forgotten something important, a dream half-remembered.

And then weakness takes her by the knees and drags her down, and even in her sleep-addled haze, she knows something is deeply  _ wrong _ when she reaches for the Light and finds nothing there.

She doesn’t scream. She’s on patrol on Venus in the dead of night, and besides, she doesn’t think she has the strength for it.

That’s the most terrifying part, she thinks in a moment of lucidity between the wracking aches that take her body in spasms, the loss of strength. She feels weak as she lays on the ground, thrashing in her bedroll, Orion a limp and lifeless shell on the ground next to her. 

When it’s done, she shivers helplessly. Venus feels unbearably cold without the Light to warm her. She reaches out and drags Orion close, dead metal cold in her palm, and for the first time in a very long while, she cries.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep when she wakes the next morning. Ryf curls into the bedroll for a moment, just long enough to feel sorry for herself, and then pushes it aside. Orion flutters weakly in her grasp, and she lets him up. He flutters his shell, panicking.

“Guardian -  _ Ryf  _ \- the Light, it’s-”

“Gone,” she says, and he droops.

She sits up, muscles aching with protest, and begins donning her armor. It is made for Titans with Titan strength, but she will not leave it, and she will not go unprotected. She will simply have to relearn how to wear it, move with ease and power once more.

She ignores the trembling in her legs as she stands, and kicks dirt over the embers of last night’s fire. Orion helpfully transmats the bedroll, and she grabs her shotgun.

“Ryf, what are we going to do?”

She hesitates for a moment. Her fingers grip, white-knuckled, onto her gun. “We’re going to find a way off this rock.” She looks at her Ghost, gray finials spinning in worry. “Open all channels, search for distress signals. Let’s go see if we’re the only ones.” She closes her eyes and shutters her helmet. “And send a message to Bera and Examoris.”

His core spins, finials flared, but he stops abruptly. “Ryf, the satellites. They're - gone. I can't reach them.”

Ryf frowns. “Gone or can't reach them? Those are two different things, Orion.”

“Gone.”

“ _ Fuck. _ ” She kicks the ground and groans in frustration. “What’s going on, Orion?”

He flutters weakly, drawing his shell in tight. “I don’t know, Guardian. I’m sorry.” His blue optic darts to the ground. “I’m afraid.”

She prods at the space where her Light was in her mind, finds it empty. “Me too.”

* * *

It takes her three days to find a ship.

It takes her one to find the first camp.

The Cabal are on Venus. Ryf is shocked at that much, but when she sees a Legionnaire drag a Hunter out into the center of a rough circle of other Cabal, she tightens her grip on her shotgun. They bark and yip in their guttural language, utterly unintelligible, and Ryf curses under her breath that she never followed Examoris’ advice ( _ “Any progress?” “No outgoing messages, Guardian. We’re - alone.” “Damn it.” _ ) of learning the languages of their enemies. The farthest she’d ever gotten was learning  _ fuck you _ in Fallen. Eliksni. Examoris would get on her ass about using the proper terminology -

The shot rings out like a bell. The Hunter’s body falls to the ground. Ryf waits a long moment, breath caught in her throat. Their Ghost should be there. Any minute now. 

Any minute now.

When the Cabal grunt out their laughter, kicking at the body and stealing bits and pieces from it, Ryf sees red. It is only the gentle presence of her Orion that stops her from charging.

« _ I don’t think I’ll be able to resurrect you, _ » Orion tells her, soft over their commlink.

Fuck.

She walks away when they drag the next Guardian out - a Titan, an Exo. Gray finish, orange accents. He snarls down the barrel of the gun they put to his temple.

She doesn’t see him fall. She only hears the shot.

She spends the next two days thinking about what she could have done.

* * *

The Cabal she found were the first of many, and the distress signals she receives don’t paint a pretty picture. Ryf finds camps, hovels, shelters, most of them empty - more than a few are filled with the bodies of the fallen. Guardians, slain and left to rot on the ground by Cabal. She barely registers the Vex anymore.

She gathers up bonds, marks, cloaks, pulls muddy dog tags from broken necks. 

She can’t stop thinking about how she could have been faster.

( _ “Anything from Earth?” _

_ “Nothing. I’m sorry, Guardian.” _

_ “Fuck. Fucking hell. Shit.”) _

When she finds the ship, she has to sneak past a Centurion who’s leaning against a wall on guard; there’s a dozen Vanguard ships in the little hangar easily, but Ryf only needs one.

She slips into the ship with grace Bera would be proud of, and settles into the cockpit silently. « _ You ready, Orion? _ »

« _ Not in the slightest, Guardian. Takeoff in 5. _ »

She slides her helmet closed. Takes a deep breath. Maybe sends a prayer or two - to whom, she doesn’t know. Anyone that’s listening.

« _ Three. _ »

_ Come on. Come on. _ She can hear the engines come on underneath her. The Cabal scramble outside the ship, readying their weapons. She hears the  _ tinktinktink  _ of fire on the hull and prays there’s not a breach.

« _ Two. _ »

Her grip tightens on the controls. Ahead of her, the hangar door is just beginning to close.  _ Thank the Traveler we chose the closest ship. _

« _ One. _ »

She takes immense satisfaction in the sound of a Cabal getting squished underneath the ship as it lifts off. The top of the hull scrapes against the hangar door as it threatens to snap the ship in half, but it dances underneath and takes off into the sky.

* * *

Ryf floats in space for a long day. She explores the confines of the ship she’s stolen, finds little knick-knacks in the single storage-bay-turned-bedroom. A holo of a fireteam, she assumes - three guardians, two Warlocks and a Titan. They look beaten and battered, but they’re all smiling with their helmets off. The Titan stands in the middle, his arms around the shoulders of the two Warlocks at either side. The muted colors of the holo make the orange accents weak against the gray of his face, but she recognizes it well enough.

She looks at the names scrawled across the bottom of the holo -  _ Courtney, Kerrick-6, Hélène. We made it!!! :D _

She pockets the little holo.

“Any news on Earth?” she calls to her Ghost, and Orion appears over her shoulder. Her voice sounds hoarse, as if she’s been crying. Damnit.

“Nothing, Guardian. I’m sorry.”

She nods. The gnawing hunger she's been ignoring for the past three days rumbles in her stomach, and she gives a perfunctory search of the cabin, comes up with three protein bars tossed into a drawer and likely forgotten.

“Setting course for the Tower,” Orion mutters.

“Wait, no,” Ryf says, picking at the wrapper, “set course for Felwinter.”

Orion whirs. “Done.”

* * *

She doesn't dock at either. Cabal ships circle the planet in low orbit, and from what communications Orion picks up -

“The City?  _ The _ City?” Ryf stalks over to where he floats, finger raised. “Are you proof fucking positive about that?”

“Distress signals planet wide state that the Last City has been compromised,” Orion deadpans, his voice tinny and monotonous, as if he can't believe it, either. “Evacuate immediately.”

“Felwinter?”

“ _ Nothing _ , Guardian - Ryf, I-” He drops a few inches. “What if they're all dead?”

Her first thought is violent, upheaving refusal, so vicious and immediate it makes her hands shake. “ _ No.  _ Someone made it out. They had to.”

_ They _ had to. She can't think of a world where Bera and Examoris-

No.

“Nothing from Felwinter,” he repeats, morose. He hangs in the air for a miserable second, then: “There's another signal, though. Intermittent. Odd.” He flutters, shell twirling. “I think it's-”

“Head for those coordinates immediately,” Ryf breathes, worried and relieved. “ _ Now, _ Orion.”

He darts off toward the cockpit, disappearing halfway there. Ryf slumps against the bed.

“Please,” she says to the empty cabin. “Please.”

* * *

She decides to pay attention to their destination an hour later. A little patch of nowhere in the European Dead Zone - she’d never done a drop there, but Bera has.

Bera was at the Tower with Examoris, wasn’t she? If they were both there, and that’s where the safe zone is - 

Ryf doesn’t dare hope.

(But she does.)

* * *

When she touches down in the EDZ, she doesn’t realize how little she’s been running on until her legs hit the ground. She doesn’t fall, though. Not yet. Not until she knows.

And when she sees Bera, glassy-eyed and tattered, she forgets the helmet in her hands and holds her close.

“Thank the Traveler you’re safe,” she breathes, nose pressed into her hair. It smells like ozone and sweat and days of stress and worry.

Bera shakes in her grip.

“Where’s Examoris?” she asks, but she doesn’t think she needs an answer. The look on Bera’s face, the dawning horror and fresh tears that accompany it, are answer enough.

Ryf holds onto Bera as she cries, crushing her against her chest, metal armor digging into her skin from the tightness of her hold. Ryf holds her close and doesn’t let her go. 

“We need to find her, Ryf, please - she was with the Speaker, they might have her, Ryf,” she sobs into her chest, bright Awoken eyes pleading.

Ryf runs her thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away the shining tears. “Bera, she’s - she -”

“No! She’s not - I would know, Ryf,  _ you _ would  _ know!  _ She wouldn’t just  _ die! _ ” Bera grabs Ryf’s shoulders, fingers tight enough that Ryf thinks they should be digging into the metal.

“...Alright, Bera. Alright. But we’re not leaving. Not yet. We can’t - where would we go?”

Bera deflates. “I don’t... I don’t know. Ryf, I don’t know - did the Vanguard even make it?”

Ryf doesn’t know. She just stands, helping Bera to her feet. “Have you eaten yet?”

When Bera doesn’t respond, she looks around, spots a little farmhouse that has more than a few people walking in and out. She takes her inside where several other Guardians are already making food. They don’t need to eat, but - 

_ But now they do, _ she thinks, and sets Bera down in one of the empty chairs, near a Hunter with kind eyes and a Titan who hasn’t taken their helmet off yet. They both give them sympathetic looks, and when the Hunter talks to Bera in low, soothing tones, Bera responds in kind. It makes Ryf’s shoulders sag in relief.

“Come on, sister,” says the Titan; they're  standing, now, hand on Ryf’s shoulder. She raises a fist, gives them two thumps on the arm, and they do the same. 

A human Warlock is standing at the stove, the smell of frying eggs in the air. “Hope you guys like omelets,” he says, long hair swaying as he turns, “because they’re about all we got. Eat up, y’all.”

The seven or so of the guardians present all find chipped plates, warped silverware, pass them around. There’s another Titan with vacant eyes at the end of the table, an Exo with blue paint and a white horn, but he’s supported by an Awoken warlock with piercing blue eyes, gently keeping him engaged and making sure he’s present. Bera’s still talking to the Hunter with the kind eyes and quick hands, speaking whip-fast in that pidgin Hunters speak. They all have plates, even the Exo, and the Warlock with the long, dark hair bound high on his head passes out omelets as fast as he makes them.

The Titan pulls up another chair for Ryf, and she sits with Bera on one side and the Titan on the other. They pull off their helmet, revealing pale blue skin and sharp blue eyes, hair bound high on their head. “Been awhile since I’ve had to eat,” they admit, almost sheepish.

“I was usually the one that made my two eat,” Ryf says, then pauses. “Well, Bera eats. Examoris is an Exo, so-”

Bera freezes. So does Ryf.

The Titan nudges her side gently. “We get it.” They pause for a moment. “That’s Elias, and I’m Javs. Both of us he.” He points to the Hunter next to Bera, and then himself. “We had a third - our Warlock, Harry. He was human. He made sure we ate, too.”

Ryf wants to ask him,  _ does your chest feel like there’s a hole in it when you think about them, too? Can you think of their name without feeling ice in your heart? Do you feel incomplete, too?  _ Instead, all she says is, “Ryf, and that's Bera. Both she.”

Javs wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Come on. We gotta eat now, so. Make the best of it.”

Ryf doesn’t think she’s ever eaten an omelet this good before in her life.

Bera puts a hand on her thigh under the table, and Ryf wraps her hand in her own.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed reading. ryf just wants to get back to her girls, and the universe conspires to keep them apart. (but not for long. i promise. <3)
> 
> this was actually one of the first pieces i wrote for this series. who knew i'd get so attached to javs, elias, and harry/ari? funny enough, they were all meant to be one-off characters, mentioned maybe once or twice.
> 
> and now i've got a whole series for them. and i'm giving elias and javs another third. (well, more like taking mike's snare and throwing him bodily at the sunshine boys, but still. point stands.) funny how life works out.
> 
> thank you for reading these - y'all's support and encouragement and readership is what makes me want to keep writing these. i'm glad you all enjoy reading about my silly, messy guardians and their escapades.
> 
> i have a [tumblr](http://banshee-44.tumblr.com), a [writing tumblr](http://kaytewrites.tumblr.com), and a [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/actualflower) if you'd like to follow me there!


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